My Sacrifice
by anotherweasley
Summary: John and Monica seven months after the series finale.


My Sacrifice  
By: Olivia  
  
Chapter 1  
  
Monica walked into the X-Files office. She stopped suddenly when she noticed an older man sitting in her chair looking up at the "I Want To Believe" poster. She quickly glanced around the office. John was nowhere in sight.  
  
"Excuse me. Can I help you?" asked Monica. She was trying to be nice even though this person whom she had never seen before had made himself at home in her and John's office.  
  
At the sound of Monica's voice, the man slowly swiveled in her chair and faced her. To her utter astonishment he pulled out a cigarette and lit it. He took a long drag of it. "Actually the question is can I help you?"  
  
Monica just stared at him, uncertain how to respond.  
  
"Oh," said the man with a smile that evoked anything but good feelings, "Where are my manners? Would you like a smoke too?" He held out his pack of Morleys. "It's your brand."  
  
At this point, Monica lost all her patience. "I quit smoking and how do you know my brand? Who are you?"  
  
The cigarette-smoking man shrugged. "Names are so unimportant."  
  
"Look I don't know who you are. You're going to have to leave."  
  
The man shrugged again as he took another drag of his cigarette. "Suit yourself." He stood up and walked over to where Monica was standing at the door. He leaned in close to her ear. It took all her will power not to shove him away. "You think you and your partner can just step in this office and pick up where Mulder and Scully left off. You're amateurs. The timetable has already been set. And your partner will not survive without you."  
  
And with that the cigarette smoking man left mumbling something.  
  
Suddenly Monica felt a sharp pain in her stomach. She put her hand to the pain and felt something sticky and wet. When she pulled her hand away it was red. She was bleeding. And then everything went black.  
  
Chapter 2  
  
"Gun!"  
  
Monica's voice reverberated in John's ears.  
  
The handcuffed man had somehow gotten hold of the arresting officer's gun. The man aimed the gun directly at John. There was no time for John to react, to pull his own weapon, to defend himself. The man fired as the other officers in the squad room tackled the man to the ground. But he had already gotten off one shot.  
  
Monica threw herself at John knocking him to the dirty, coffee stained floor. John's body slammed against floor with the combined weight of himself and Monica. That had been close-too damn close.  
  
"You okay, Monica?" asked John his breathing heavy. She had rolled off him and was now lying on the floor next to him. She lay on her stomach, her eyes closed. She opened her eyes slowly. John saw the unmistakable sign of pain in her hazel eyes. He had seen this pain many times as a U.S. Marine and he instantly recognized it in his own partner.  
  
"John, you okay?" she managed to get out weakly.  
  
John felt something sticky that his palm had been resting in. That's when he saw the blood pooling at her stomach.  
  
"Monica!" John quickly reached over and gently rolled her body over so she was lying on her back and he could assess the damage. He took off his new suit jacket without a second thought and pressed it against the wound. The red blood quickly soaked the jacket.   
  
"Agent down!" John yelled. "Someone get an ambulance here now!"   
  
One of the detectives nodded and started dialing on the nearest desk phone.  
  
John looked down at Monica. Her eyes were starting to lose focus. With his free hand that wasn't pressing down on the wound, he put his hand against her check. It felt cold, too cold. The coldness spread to him, chilling him. He found her hand and pressed his hand into hers. He tried to give her his best smile. "You're going to be just fine, Monica, just fine. Help's on the way. You just gotta hold on until then okay?"  
  
Monica nodded weakly that she had heard his words, that she understood him. She managed a smile to reassure him. "I..." Monica's eyes fluttered closed. She was going into shock.  
  
"Monica! Monica!" All John could do was scream her name as if she could hear him, as if he could get a response out of her. He got none.  
  
Chapter3  
  
"I wouldn't pay him any attention. He's just a bitter old man."  
  
Monica looked up at the young man who had entered the office. He smiled at her. For some reason Monica felt more at ease. She glanced at her stomach. The blood was gone.  
  
"I was bleeding..." Monica began unsure of what was going on.  
  
The younger man looked at her sympathetically. "The mind has a hard time adjusting sometimes. It has a hard time understanding what the body it telling it. The mind denies what it knows to be true."  
  
The man stretched his hand out. "The name's Sean, Sean Pendrell."  
  
Monica hesitantly shook his hand. "I'm Monica Reyes, but I have a feeling you already knew that."  
  
The man just smiled at her mysteriously.  
  
"You're saying I'm dead," said Monica unbelieving.  
  
"Think of this as a way station. Your body is deciding whether or not to move on."  
  
"Why do I feel like I'm having déjà vu? So I'm not dead yet?" asked Monica.  
  
"No."  
  
Monica looked around the office until her eyes rested on the "I Want To Believe" poster.  
  
"Not much has chanced in this office over the years," said Sean as he too looked around the room. "Sure the people change from time to time, but the posters still there, the trash can is still dented, the pencils are still stuck in the ceiling...."  
  
Both Sean and Monica looked up at the pencils stuck in the ceiling. They then looked at each other.  
  
Monica just smiled good-humouredly at the man. "This is a joke right? Did John put you up to this?"  
  
"You spent a happy year here. Your mind choose this place because of that," said Sean. "Can't say I blame you."  
  
Monica suddenly felt chilly. She hurried over to the file cabinets and opened all of them. They were full of X-Files. Memories came rushing back. "They shut us down and took the files. They transferred John and I out. They separated us."  
  
Monica felt another stab of pain in her stomach. She looked down but she wasn't bleeding this time. The pain subsided and then disappeared entirely.  
  
"I was shot wasn't I?" asked Monica even though she knew the answer already. The fog was slowly lifting from her mind. She was getting clarity.  
  
"Yes," said Sean sadly. "It's amazing being on the job. The thought of being shot crosses your mind, but you never really think it will happen to you."  
  
"You were an Agent here?" asked Monica.  
  
"Yes. I helped Agents Mulder and Scully on several occasions. A beautiful woman that Agent Scully is. Any way I was shot one night."  
  
"Another martyr for the cause?"  
  
"Well the bullet was meant for someone else, for Agent Scully. I was drunk, carrying drinks to her table to celebrate her birthday. I accidentally stepped into the line of fire. It was purely by mistake. I can still feel Agent Scully hands trying to stop the wound from bleeding." Sean absently touched his chest. "She told me that I was going to be fine. That I still owed her a drink."  
  
Monica put a comforting hand on Sean's arm and found it surprisingly warm and not cold as she had thought it would be. "Just because it was an accident, it was no less of a sacrifice. You saved her life."  
  
Sean smiled at Monica's words. "Just as you sacrificed your life for John's."  
  
"John..." said Monica. And the memory of the shooting came rushing back at full force."  
  
Chapter 4  
  
John sat in the hospital waiting room feeling utterly alone. Just as alone as he had been for the past seven months he had spent apart from Monica. He wiped at his eyes. How could she do this? How could she risk her life to save his? He hadn't asked her too. It was a sacrifice he never would have allowed her to make.  
  
Thoughts of Monica raced through his mind. He remembered the first time he had met her. She had promised him she would do everything in her power to find Luke. When the New York Detectives and Bureau Agents protested his involvement in the search for his son, Monica alone welcomed his help, his insight. When they had found his son, Monica had held him tightly as he broke down at the sight.  
  
He hadn't spoken her in a long time since then and when they were close to finding Mulder he knew, he knew, he needed her help. She came, no questions asked, to help him find Mulder and then later to help him on the X-Files as his partner. His mind wandered though cases they had worked together in that basement office.  
  
John thought about Monica. The way her smile reached her eyes warming him inside. He could hear her laughter. He had never met anyone so beautiful before inside and out. He saw her hopeful eyes that night in her car when she had waited for confirmation that he loved her, a confirmation that he couldn't give her at the time. Not because he didn't love her, which he did, he was just too scared to tell her. He remembered the way she had felt in his arms at her apartment and that day at the beach. She was so brave, so fearless, so protective of him in every way, physically, emotionally.  
  
But mostly he thought about the day they had said good-bye at the airport. Monica had been forced out of Headquarters. She was transferred back to New Orleans since the X-Files Unit was being disbanded and he was forced to stay, to be transferred to another Unit. Monica had started to walk away when then called her flight and John had pulled her into a hug. Letting go had been on of the hardest things he had ever done in his life. They didn't want them working together. It was one of the worst days he had ever had.  
  
Sure they talked as often as they could on the phone, e-mailed, and instant messaging. But between people watching them, hoping they would lead them to Mulder and Scully and between cases and field investigations, they hadn't had time to see each other. So when after seven months, Monica had called him, told him she needed help on a case, he knew it was a ruse. She didn't need his help. He was happy to play along, because he needed to see her. John's silent prayers wandered to heaven pleading for Monica's life.  
  
"I'm looking for my partner, Agent Monica Reyes. She was brought to this hospital. I need to know if she's okay."  
  
John looked up at the man's voice and saw a young, and John hated to admit it, good-looking man talking to a nurse. The nurse said something to him and the man looked over at John. He approached John and John eyed him warily.  
  
"Agent Doggett? I'm Caleb Mattingly, Monica's partner."  
  
"Yes," said John as he tried to push down his feelings of jealousy. Must have been what Mulder had first felt when he came back from the dead to find that his partner had another partner. "Monica told me bout you. You two were partnered before she came to D.C. to work with me."  
  
Caleb sat down in one of the chairs across from John. John too sat back down. "How's she doing? The nurse was a little vague."  
  
"Still in surgery. The docs say it's going to be touch and go. They don't know if she'll pull through." John's voice betrayed his deep emotion.  
  
"Damn," swore Caleb. "I heard what happened. If only I hadn't have had to have been in court today. Maybe I could have done something."  
  
"It should be me in there. I should be the one shot," John said with conviction.  
  
Caleb shook his head. "You can't think like that. If it was you in there, she would be outside here worrying about you."  
  
"But at least she'd be okay."  
  
An awkward silence settled between the two. Caleb had no response to this. Neither knew what to say to each other.  
  
"I'm glad I got to meet you," said Caleb finally breaking the silence. "Although I of course wish it were under better circumstances. She was so excited about you coming down."   
  
John smiled sadly at his words.  
  
"You know," continued Caleb, "I've worked with Monica twice. First when she transferred here from the New York Field Office. Back then, I could tell she was getting away from something or someone that had caused her pain. She was so relieved to be here. I knew after working our first few cases together that she was a great Agent. She had great instincts. Her ideas sometimes were, well out there, but she was always a good Agent. She just wasn't the typical FBI Agent."  
  
"She prided herself on that," said John and he realized that he too felt that same pride. He knew the reason that Monica had been upset. She had seen her ex-boyfriend Brad take that bribe.  
  
"Yes, she did," agreed Caleb. "And then she transferred to your Unit, the X-Files. I talked to her from time to time. She was so excited to be there, so excited to be working with you. I don't think I'd ever heard her so excited. And then she transferred back here after your Unit was disbanded and I don't ever think, even when she transferred here for the first time, that I've seen her so sad. Oh, she hides it well, but she misses all of it. I'm afraid her reputation has only increased since she was on the X-Files. Her theories are more out there than usual. I'm glad to have gotten a chance to work with her again, but I'm sorry you two weren't able to keep your Unit open."  
  
"I'm sorry too." John smiled sadly at Caleb's words. He felt like crying. "Monica's always spoken very highly of you. I was glad to hear that you'd be watching her back since I couldn't."  
  
Caleb looked at John. "She's really thinks the world of you know. She tries to hide it, but I can tell. I didn't know if you knew that, but I thought you should know."  
  
John looked up at Caleb and understood the deeper meaning of the words. "When she asked me to come down here...I didn't get a chance to tell her that I had finally gotten my transfer request approved. I was going to come here if she wanted me to."  
  
Caleb leaned back in his chair and let out a deep breath. "Monica didn't know I knew about the transfer request she had filled out that sat in her desk drawer. She wanted to request a transfer back to Washington."  
  
The news hit John in the gut. He put his face in his hands.  
  
Chapter 5  
  
Monica looked up at Sean. "Do you know how John is?"  
  
Sean nodded. "Physically he's fine. Wouldn't have been if you hadn't taken that bullet for him. Emotionally, he's a wreak. You're all he can think about right now. He's praying that you'll be okay, that'll you live, just as you once prayed in a chapel for his life."  
  
Monica nodded her head. "I wish I could comfort him somehow. He's lost so much in his life, takes so much blame upon himself-first Luke and now me."  
  
"You must really love him."  
  
"What?" asked Monica confused.  
  
"You must really love him. I mean, you take a bullet for him and then your life is hanging in the balances and all you can think about is him," explained Sean.  
  
Monica smiled sadly. "All I can do is think about him these days. Ever since I was transferred back to New Orleans, I've been...I've been so empty without him. You know I've got a transfer request form filled out sitting in my desk drawer? If I only knew that he wanted me to be back with him, I'd have filed the paperwork. But with the X-Files gone, I don't know if he still needs me. So what do I do, I invent some excuse, some case to get John down here. I just needed to see him again."  
  
Sean walked up to Monica and looked into her face, analyzing her for a few seconds, but it was as if he was listening to some inner voice. Then he smiled. "He needed to see you again too. He's been lonely without you these past months."  
  
Monica opened her mouth to asked how he knew when everything went dark.  
  
Chapter 6  
  
At the sight of the doctor, both John and Caleb stood up. The doctor's expression was unreadable.  
  
"How is she Doc?" asked John anxious and impatient.  
  
"It was a serious gunshot wound and it splintered on impact. We've been picking out the pieces."  
  
John felt his heart sink to the lowest it had been since he had found Luke's body. Caleb, also anxious, asked, "But will she pull through?"  
  
The Doctor looked at them. His expression was serious. "We've done all that we can for her. If she survives the night, there's a good chance, but I have to be honest with you, we're not really optimistic."  
  
John was willing to grasp onto any hope, no matter how small. "Can I see her?"  
  
"We'll I think I should only allow one of you two to see her. Is one of you her husband?"  
  
Caleb and John turned to look at each other awkwardly. Caleb just nodded at John. He knew how desperately he needed to see Monica, even if it was only to say good-bye while he had a chance.   
  
John for his part nodded his thanks. "I'm not her husband, but I'll see her if that's okay."  
  
The Doctor simply nodded and he showed John the way. They walked down a corridor and then came to a room. He left John there.  
  
John's hand shook as he grasped the door handle and opened the door. As soon as he opened it, his gaze became fixated on Monica. She just laid there with tubes and wires attached to her. Her breath was being mechanically pumped in and out of her body.  
  
John walked over to Monica and sat down wearily in the chair beside her bed. He caught her hand up into his and kissed it gently. He brushed a few stray locks of her dark hair away from her face.  
  
He thought of the last time he had been he waiting, worrying, praying for some sign, any sign that Monica was still alive, that she would be okay. But this was different. There was no Doctor Death to confront and save Monica from. There was no Audrey to show him the way and lead Monica back to this world. This was real. This was final. This was out of his control. If only he had been a few seconds faster. Maybe he could have gotten the drop on the guy. Maybe he could have stopped Monica from jumping in front of him. Mentally, he cursed himself and very nearly cursed God for allowing all this tragedy in his life, for taking away the one thing that had ever made sense in his life since Luke's death, for taking away the one bright spot in his life. But he knew that right now God was all he had left to turn to. He needed God. He needed God to bring Monica back to him.  
  
John cleared his throat. "Monica, it's me, John. I just wanted to let you know that I'm right here with you tonight. I'm not leaving this hospital without you walking out of here with me."  
  
John slowly pulled out a piece of paper from his coat pocket and put it between Monica's hand and his. "This is a transfer request for me to come to New Orleans that just got approved. I wanted to come here and surprise you. I was hoping that you'd want to be partners again. Or at the very least, even if we weren't partners, we could see each other, ya know. The truth is, this piece of paper ain't worth a damn if you're not here. There's no place on this earth I want to be if you're not with me."  
  
John could feel hot tears sliding down his face. He thought for a second to wipe them away, but he needed to hold Monica's hand, to have this connection with her. "I've been so afraid for so long, Monica, to let you into my life. I didn't think I deserved to be this happy. I thought you could do so much better than me. I kept you at a distance, didn't let you in. I didn't want to bring you down and hurt you like I always seem to hurt people. I just didn't realize that by not lettin' you in I was hurtin' you even more. I realized you already knew who I was deep down, and if I let you in, it would only allow you to love me more, the way I have always loved you."  
  
John leaned back in his chair, but didn't let go of Monica's hand. His tears slowly subsided and his anguish was replaced by a quiet resolution. "If you still want me when you wake up, I'm not leaving you ever again, Monica."  
  
Chapter 7  
  
The night wore on and John fell asleep still clutching Monica's hand. A few hours later the first rays of the morning came streaming through the hospital window.  
  
John jolted away and looked at Monica. Nothing had changed. He had half expected to wake up to find this was all some horrible nightmare. But the anguish of the night had not disappeared despite the daylight.  
  
John thought he felt Monica's hand move and John gripped her hand even tighter. His gaze flew to her face, search for any sign of consciousness. Her eyelids slowly began to flutter and she finally got her eyes open. John's face was the first thing she saw. Monica smiled at him. "John..."  
  
John was so happy and relived that he was at a loss for words. John leaned over and gently kissed Monica on the lips.   
  
Monica, weak and full of pain, was touched greatly by this. She smiled again. "You better watch it, John. A girl could get used to waking up this way."  
  
"That's good," said John still smiling. "I was worried about what you'd think when I told you I got a transfer to New Orleans field office."  
  
Monica was confused. "You're coming here?"  
  
Suddenly, John was unsure of himself again, unsure of Monica's feelings for him. "If...if you wanted me to."  
  
But Monica's smile quashed all his doubts. "Of course, of course, I want you...." Monica's eyes were starting to flutter close. "Sorry...just so tired..."  
  
"Hey, you just get some rest now, okay? We'll talk about everything after your feeling better."  
  
Monica's eyes closed but she managed a nod to let John know that she heard him. She still had a smile on her lips as she drifted back into sleep.  
  
John simply watched Monica sleep. The sight of her, alive and okay, comforted him. Never again would he allow Monica to doubt that he loved her. As long as she wanted him in her life, he would be there to love her as she had always been there for him.  
  
The End  
  
"Hello my friend we meet again/It's been a while where should we begin...feels like forever/Within my heart are memories/Of perfect love that you gave to me/I remember/When you are with me/I'm free..I'm careless...I believe/Above all the others we'll fly/This brings tears to my eyes/My sacrifice/We've seen our share of ups and downs/Oh how quicly life can turn around in an instant/It feels so good to reunite/Within yourself and within your mind/Let's find peace there...I just want to say hello again."-Creed-"My Sacrifice" 


End file.
